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Beware the Bar B.Q. Tonight in Kabul

In March, the Afghan government traded Taliban prisoners for an Italian journalist. Met with condemnation around the globe, Afghanistan was warned that this would only embolden the terrorists to snatch more foreigners. Last month the South Korean evangelical group was taken hostage as they were taking a charter bus from Kabul to Kandahar, basically sitting ducks on the highway. South Korea has tried to get the Afghan government to release more Taliban to get their people back, but the Afghan government has duly refused. Now an amazingly bold attack — four gunman seizing a German aid worker in a Kabul fast-food joint (how do you say Big Mac in Pashtu?) in the middle of the day, strategically positioning themselves inside and outside the restaurant, the one inside even ordering a pizza (we’re assuming not ham and sausage).

Now even though the Taliban currently hold a German man, the German government has not demanded the Afghan government bend over for terrorists and meet their demands. So the Bar BQ Tonight terrorists probably picked the wrong nationality to kidnap this time around. And there’s a chance that the aid worker was snatched by criminals who just want money. But as the Taliban have also declared that negotiations regarding the 19 remaining South Korean hostages are over, my guess is that they will kill a few more to try to stir the international-furor pot, and try to freak out the German citizenry enough that they heighten pressure on the government to give in to terrorist demands as well.